Paintings :

Umbrella Forest

A few years ago, our family visited the gardens at Tatton Park in England. The plant shown in this painting is a Gunnera. These leaves really do get that big! This one is particularly happy, growing on the edge of pond.

It was a very rainy day. The Gunnera leaves made wonderful umbrellas! Hiding among the huge leaves, we were all the size of fairies in the garden! My children were especially delighted!

This is just another one of my favorite sort of images where the plants and trees create special places and you are completely immersed in the garden.

This painting was a real challenge with the leaves reflecting light from their surfaces and still showing light through underneath. There also is a certain tension between the figures and the leaves. The painting is about the leaves, and the figures are just there to give you scale, but the human brain wants so much to give the figures all of it's attention. (I guess we're wired that way.) I hope I've resolved the balance in the end and I hope you enjoy being immersed in the umbrella forest as much as we did!